Being single certainly has some superb benefits. You always get control of the remote control, you can eat what you want and not worry about what anyone else wants and if you’re male, you can leave the toilet seat in a permanently down position. But I have always marveled at the single cruiser, sitting alone on the Promenade deck, surrounded by couples. There are single cruise groups as well and they are an excellent way of meeting people. But for some guests, being part of a “single but looking for love” group cruise is not what they want. Yep, cruising single is not always easy. All of this came to mind yesterday when I was walking along the Deck 2 Promenade here on Carnival Legend and I saw a middle-aged lady sitting on her own by the Atlantis Bar. It was 9:30am or so, the ship was in Nassau and many guests were ashore. She wasn’t reading or doing anything really, she was just…….well……..sitting. I gave her a cheery good morning and she gave me what can only be a half-hearted smile in return. Now, I was actually in a bit of a rush as I was heading to meet with another guest who I will speak more of later in the blog. (more…)

I had already started writing today’s blog a few hours ago as the ship sat overnight here in Venice. While I was asleep, I dreamt of running the 200 meters final representing the UK. I had been neck and neck with Usain Bolt and we crossed the line together but the judges gave Usain the gold medal because his gentleman’s sausage had crossed the line before mine. Anyway, I waddled over to the computer to find a message telling me that during the night, some “new software ” had been installed and the computer had “restarted.” My half written blog had gone. (more…)

There is a book called “Women Are from Mars and Men Are from Uranus” or something like that and, judging from what’s happened here on the Carnival Breeze in the last four days, the author of this book was sodding well right. Within hours of the ship sailing from Barcelona on Thursday, a guest from Canada had contacted the guest services desk and had requested immediate debarkation as he and his partner had decided they hated each other. Now, obviously, he had to wait until the following day when we were in Marseilles before he got off the ship as we were at sea. Luckily, we had one open cabin for the night as some guests had missed the ship in Barcelona and would rejoin us in Marseilles and so, after four years of being together, he buggered off back to Toronto leaving his partner on her own to cruise without him for 11 days. What a true shame. (more…)

Before I was a cruise director or a bar waiter even and before I worked in the city of London as a…well, actually, I have no sodding clue what I did, I worked for a local newspaper in my home town of Southend selling advertising space. It has been nearly 30 years since I did that for a holiday job while I was at college and I hated it and what I hated most of all was cold calling. Calling local companies and seeing if they wanted to advertise their business in our newspaper was a dark and lonely job that usually left me with the ringtone resounding in my ear hole. For these reasons, I always try to be nice to cold callers when they contact me.
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So during the show last night, I took some people from the audience for some pre-show fun before the Divas revue. It included a young couple who, when I asked for their names and where they were from, they replied they were from Denver, Colorado. I then shocked myself by instead of saying, “Are you having fun?” or “What’s your favourite port so far?” or “Bugger me your wife is gorgeous, are they real?” I went straight into the, “I am so sorry, how dreadful, it’s awful, I hope they cut his bollocks off and shove 50,000 volts through his arse.”
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Last week, someone posted a photo on my Facebook page. It showed a Carnival ship in space, taking a cruise around the moon. It was a great photo and I have been thinking about this the past few days and have been asking myself if indeed this is the future of cruising?

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This week, there have been many great articles from the brilliant Gene Sloan, the esteemed writer from USA Today, and other writers who wrote about the Carnival Splendor and her being the…well hold on, rather than me waffle and badly paraphrase his brilliance, let’s all have a look at the following post from our friend Vance.
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So, Wimbledon is over for another year and no, we have three weeks of rest before London hosts the Olympic Games where our opening ceremony will consist of a double decker bus, David Beckham in a pair of Speedos and that other British institution Simon Cowell introducing some Bollywood dancers. Yep, compared to the opening ceremony China gave us four years ago, this will look like it has been produced by the London Retired Ladies Knitting Association. (more…)

Heidi and Kye left for home today and I feel sad. I will miss not having them here more than words I am capable of writing can ever describe.

Obviously, I asked Heidi just before she left if she was OK because I know how it affects her and how she hates leaving me here on my own. Her answer of, “I’m fine” is a stock answer that women give to questions when they really are anything but “fine.” This is one of Heidi’s most annoying habits along with wanting to talk after rumpy pumpy. If I am silent for more than 30 seconds, she will ask me, “What are you thinking?” (more…)

From: BREEZE GUEST SERVICES
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 6:31 PM
To: BREEZE CRUISE DIRECTOR
Cc: BREEZE ASSISTANT CRUISE DIRECTOR; BREEZE GUEST SERVICES MANAGER; BREEZE GUEST SERVICES; BREEZE GUEST SERVICES SUPERVISOR
Subject: 10*** – Meeting with John

Good afternoon John,

Mr. and Mrs. _______ from cabin 10*** are asking to speak to you. They still have no luggage which was lost by Iberia. We have tried to work with the airline but so far they have not found it. Guests are very angry and upset and are blaming us even though they booked the flight independent to Carnival. They have no insurance and really are upset. Not sure what you can say, John, but maybe you can call them.

Thank you and best regards,

Guest Services Associate, Carnival Breeze

Let me start by saying that I have nothing but sympathy for these guests and they, along with 11 other cabins here on Carnival Breeze, have had the misfortune of the airlines losing luggage. (more…)